Enhancing Access

Creating New Products: Make Things Easier

MetLife develops many products every year to meet the changing needs of our customers. In 2017, we began rolling out a new product development process to more clearly connect our products to customer needs. The new process uses customer insights, strong market testing, uniform risk governance and end-to-end digitization to reduce risk, lower costs and drive greater value. The new approach will help customers better understand what our products do and which ones are right for them. We are also changing many of our product names to be simpler and more intuitive in order to provide our customers increased transparency and a better understanding of our solutions.

Enhancing Access to Products and Services

We seek to make insurance simple and accessible by offering useful products and services through convenient channels. We are achieving this objective by broadening access to affordable products and services, offering insurance to middle-class and disadvantaged populations and establishing a presence in countries where protection products are difficult to obtain.

In many of our markets, we distribute insurance through partnerships with organizations such as banks, retailers, mobile phone operators and affinity groups to overcome barriers to access. We also develop partnerships with microfinance institutions, which provide affordable financial products and services to low-income people in rural areas. The simplified administration, issuance and claim-settlement processes we have developed for these partnerships support our mutual mission of creating greater financial inclusion in developing markets.